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Run Less, Run Faster

Run less, run faster. Those words have been what I have been going by lately in my training. Injuries happen and they usually do when you are overtraining. Overtraining happens when you do too many hard runs, strength workouts and you leave little time for your body to rest in between. The other factor is life stress. You could be running yourself down outside of training and when you get to your run, you are too exhausted to even complete your run. Last week, that was my life.

I’ve been extremely cautious during my training journey to not overtrain but at the same time, not undertrain. I work long days, have a long(ish) commute to work and I try to fit in seeing all of my friends and family on my spare time. Oh right, and half marathon training.

I headed out for my long run of 11 miles last week and stopped at 2 miles to walk. I realised, I was burnt out. I was too exhausted to go on. I started moving at a slow pace and still just couldn’t do it. I ended that run at 3.70 miles. I felt defeated. It’s not in me to quit but I wasn’t quitting. – I was training smart and listening to my body. There is a huge difference. When you push yourself too hard, you risk injury, sickness and can set your training back a lot farther than one run. And, sit was 3.7 more miles than I did before I left. Sometimes you need to scale back.

Scaling back. I started scaling back my runs per week. I run 3 times a week. A long run, a hard run and an easy run. Easy runs is where I have been known to struggle with. I love to push myself past my limits but I know that even the elites run a casual slow run. My favourite way to do this is by running with my friends who are new to running. The great thing about it is that, I have so much energy during these runs and can talk my running partner through the run. I keep the motivation up by making the time pass by and I get that easy pace in which is necessary for recovery, technique and it’s fun to help someone learn to love running. My long runs have also taken a huge benefit to running less and I run my long runs faster. They feel easy easier.

A few years ago, I thought running everyday, clocking a lot of hours and running around the same pace during every run was important. It’s not for me. Every body is different and requires a different training regime. I’ve learned that my muscles need more time to recover. I also need to eat every 2 hours throughout my day to keep myself fuelled.

Run less, run faster. It works for me. It doesn’t make me less of a runner for not clocking a million miles a week. I will take my quality runs over the quantity runs and maybe one day I will be able to run a marathon a day for an entire year.